Exclusive Stream: Eli Keszler, Catching Net

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PAN continues on it's amazing streak with this new double CD release of a variety of Eli Keszler's most notable pieces. Included are both sides of last year's PAN release, Cold Pin, with a choice bonus track of the piece of landmark avant composition being performed live by an ensemble of Keszler, Ashley Paul, Geoff Mullen, Greg Kelly, and Reuben Son, and then, on the other CD, “Cold Pin” recorded live at the Cyclorama in Boston in its installed form. “Cold Pin”, as you might remember, was an installed piece of music, composed of “14 strings ranging in length from 25 to 3 feet are strung across a 15 x 40 curved wall, with motors attacking the strings, connected by micro-controllers, pick-ups and RCA cables.” We love the video of this crazy new kind of music, and we wish we could have been present for it's actual performance! Lucky for us, we can listen to the recording, which is almost as wild.

The second CD also includes “Catching Net”, a piece performed by the more standard instruments of a string quartet and piano in the Bell Street Chapel in Providence, RI. However, the whinnies and grunts of this string quartet are truly inventive, forcing these classical instruments to climb on top of what 300 years of composition for them has created for them, to plant a flag of the new sound revolution. Lastly, we have the track “Collecting Basin”, a piece built in the city of Shreveport, Louisiana, where “Extended Piano wire from 20 to 200 feet are struck with motorized beaters which are triggered from a micro controller system. The strings splay directly out off a two story water tower, extending over empty water purification basins.” Just try, for a second, to imagine what this sounds like. Now listen. See how wrong you were?

Catching Net will be available soon via Forced Exposure and Boomkat, but in the meantime, get your first listen here.